Agents from the Internal Revenue Service confiscated dozens of slot-like machines during a raid Monday at a popular gaming business.

Terminals with names like “Game Maker” and “Wolf Run” were pushed from the Golden Nugget, 3110 Whipple Ave. NW, into three 32-foot moving vans and hauled away around 2 p.m. Agents on the scene declined to comment on the investigation and the reasons behind the raid.

Agents from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service assisted. Special Agent Craig Casserly, spokesman for the IRS’s Criminal Investigations Division in Columbus, had not been briefed on the specifics of the case.

“I can’t comment on what’s going on right now,” Casserly said. “We’re on official business is all I can say at this point, and that’s due to everything’s (being) sealed right now.”

Casserly said the Criminal Investigations Division investigates income tax fraud, money laundering and currency violations, such as transferring money in low enough amounts to avoid the requirement to file a transaction report.

Casserly would not say if other Stark County businesses had been raided. The federal government would have to file a motion with a federal judge seeking to unseal the record.

Business owner Yabacushyanei Bennett of Canton declined to comment on the matter.

“I can’t give any statements,” Bennett said when reached on his cellphone. “Right now it’s just an investigation.”

ABOUT THE BUSINESS

The business is operated by Great Vibe Entertainment Arcade, according to an Internet café/skilled games zoning application filed with Plain Township in January. On the application, Bennett lists the business as having 222 games and hours of operation from 9 a.m. to midnight. A permit was issued by the township Jan. 28 after owners paid $26,200 in permit fees, including $100 per game.

The Golden Nugget opened August 2008, according to other township records. Great Vibe Entertainment is listed as a for-profit corporation by the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office.

It is unclear what types of games were confiscated and why. Skill games, which have an outcome controlled by the player, are allowed in Ohio, but cash payouts are not. Prizes cannot have a retail value higher than $10.

State lawmakers and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine are currently trying to address another perceived form of gambling by trying to ban Internet sweepstakes cafés, which are currently not regulated. There is a state moratorium preventing any new Internet sweepstakes cafés from opening.

The Golden Nugget, veiled by tinted windows, takes up six storefronts in the plaza.

“Same things you play down at Mountaineer,” Ashley said, referring to the casino in Chester, W.Va.

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Ashley said players insert money, select how much they want to play on each spin and the number of lines they want to play. Unlike casino slots, however, the player has to push a button to tell the game when to stop spinning.

Ashley said the maximum bet on most games was $3. He said the machines inside the Golden Nugget spit out tickets redeemable for cash. He has been going there for three or four years.

“I’m an old-time gambler,” he said. “I go in and play the machines and have fun. I only play 10 cents.”

Ashley said the most he has won in one sitting is “a couple hundred dollars.” The 79-year-old Ashley described an inviting atmosphere where a mostly older crowd enjoyed complimentary food and drinks.

More than a dozen people, many of them older adults, drove up Monday to the Golden Nugget as the IRS was taking out the machines.

“A lot of people come here,” said one woman, who declined to give her name. “It’s the best around.”